New Rising Media Is Dead. Long Live Neo-Entity

So as you may have noticed, I haven’t been posting much from New Rising Media lately, and have linked you to a website called Neo-Entity. This site is the re-invention of us and our purpose that I’d love to talk to you about now, on the fourth Birthday of this brand.

Throughout the years of running New Rising Media, I’ve worked to try and answer one question: what do we do exactly? It sounds like a stupidly simple conundrum, but when you take into account all the topics we cover, the mission to find what we stand for was completely lost in the haze of trying to be everything to everyone.

We also covered geek culture news, but yet in among my opinion pieces about working in social media marketing and reporting on company Twitter mishaps, this didn’t make sense either.

A lesson to other small websites like mine, who are feeling a similar pressure to me in trying to attract every reader possible, I implore you to take one lesson away from this. To make the best end result for your audience to read/watch/listen to, it’s as important to say “no” to opportunities as it is to say “yes.”

Don’t get trapped in the belief that compromising your heartfelt reason for getting into this game will get you more readers. The list of topics you cover will get bigger, confusing the end user and ruining your bounce rate. Plus that very site you loved to write for becomes tainted, as it doesn’t feel like something you care about anymore.

New Rising Media doesn’t feel like mine anymore, so today after thinking about this opportunity for over two years, we’re replacing it.

Welcome to Neo-Entity

So what is Neo-Entity? We cover the latest technology, science and geek culture news in the UK and worldwide! This is a new piece of work that exists to write about things with a distinct and important presence, hence Neo-Entity…that’s really it!

Got to admit it feels amazing when you start stripping away the chauvinistic bollocks of trying to explain a website that has no explanation (New Rising Media is the premiere place for what is new and rising in the media? Give me a break).

I’ve taken the three topics I enjoy writing about the most and have combined them into one site. Conveniently, when taking a look at the audience we’re targeting, these topics are closely related to each other in forming a good profile of content for you all to enjoy. And it’s showing in tests, as the bounce rate is down and readers are exploring all we have to offer.

But what’s more is the mission I want to take on with this site. Taking a look at the UK technology and science reporting space for a few minutes, you’ll see it’s gone through a process of Americanisation. That’s not to say I have a lot to appreciate from this trend. A greater investment in publishing houses in Britain means there’s more people reporting on the technological revolution we are seeing here. The problem is none of them really celebrate the contributions we bring to the world. None of them are really quintessentially British, give or take a few terrible puns.

I want Neo-Entity to fascinate the world by showing them the amazing undiscovered technology, science and geek culture that’s happening here. Of course there will be popular world news that we need to cover in these topics (there will always be an iPhone review for example), but our main focus is to tackle this problem of UK tech journalism head on with the little-to-no money I have.

Don’t expect fireworks, just the best work I can provide with what assets are available to me.

But what about New Rising Media?

So this leaves one final question: what’s happening to New Rising Media? Many of you are following this brand on Facebook and Twitter, which I’ve just said is being replaced.

Allow me to answer this simply. New Rising Media is not dead. It’s been evolving for the last year and I didn’t even see it happening.

One of the best mistakes to happen to me in my day-to-day life is accidentally stumbling into a career path of social media marketing. I’ve loved working for brands both big and small, from Off Limits Corporate Events to Boots UK. I enjoy this field of work so much I’m volunteering to help other brands, working on launching Macmillan Fest into the social stratosphere and chomping at the bit for more.

What I didn’t realise through my working with different people (let’s call them clients for the context of this sentence to work) is that I was setting up a pretty decent base to offer my services in this area to other companies, under the conveniently good advertising agency name of New Rising Media.

Bear in mind, when I say ‘agency,’ I’m not going to become the next Sterling Cooper (although that would be awesome). This is just an opportunity I’ve always wanted to take to provide my work and expertise to other companies, providing some warmly welcomed income.

You’ll see a big site redesign really soon and in terms of the stories, I will focus solely on social media news and editorial to align the whole brand. If you’re still interested in following, then thank you! If not, for your regular programming please follow Neo-Entity.

If you’re interested/know someone who’s looking for someone to help with their social media, then get in touch.

Jason England

I am the Founder and Editor-in-chief of New Rising Media. You can follow me on Twitter @MrJasonEngland.

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